


Whisper of Love

by demonshide7



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ, JYJ (Band), yunjae - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Male to Male relationship, YunJae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-16 22:45:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7287682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonshide7/pseuds/demonshide7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>San Francisco hides many things in the fog. And this time, love is found within its folds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mark Hopkins

**Author's Note:**

> This was an experiment in writing with more description. And varying the 'voice' of the piece.   
> Hope you enjoy!

He had not expected to see him.  In the darkened throng of this jazz club in the middle of San Francisco’s Nob Hill, he really did not expect to see him.  He should probably have expected it, but time had dulled his want and perception regarding this man. Seven long years had come and gone since he had last had the chance to speak to him. Seven long years since he had come back from military duties. Seven long years of wandering and avoiding and distracting. Seven long years of trying to forget. Seven long years of longing and wishing...

Nob Hill in the evening was pervasive.  Senses became addicted to the fog shrouded streets of undulating hills carrying exotic scents of myriad cacophony of distant lands converging into this city by the sea.  It was what had drawn him to this place years before.  There was something mysterious about this fog shrouded city.  It was a pulsating, breathing entity that somehow seeped into the marrow of one’s bones even as one wrapped a long wool coat tighter around one’s body to ward off the chill of filaments of cloud.  Yuchun often said that he must have left his heart in San Francisco for to him there was a keen beckoning to keep returning to this place over and over. 

Perhaps he had become addicted to the sight of the red bridge that spanned one side of the bay connecting the city to islands across the bay or  perhaps it was the cacophony of different languages he heard as he walked the streets of history rich Chinatown, a decided tourist stop in this vastly entertaining city.  There were little cities dotting the other sides of the bridges that somehow snake their way into this city funneling people into its already crowded streets that never seem to sleep.  Its night clubs remain opened until the vestiges of its artificially illuminated landscape give way to the brighter light of the coming dawn.  And even then, more often than not, the swirl and eddy of mists keep enshrouding the city, that from the close confines of his loft apartment he often felt as if he’s living in the midst of clouds. 

There were always two seasons in the Bay Area - cold and bearable.  Whether it was raining, foggy, winter, summer, spring, fall, sunny - it didn’t matter.  One learned to  dress in layers, peeling off one layer at a time during August through October if the prevailing El Nino or El Nina currents were favorable and the sunshine bursts through the bank of fluffed clouds and ribbons of mists that permeate throughout the landscape.  One learned to carry an umbrella, although one of his friends urged him to carry one for bodily protection more than for shelter from a sudden outpouring of heaven’s tears.

In San Francisco, as one who was considered a metrosexual, there have been incidents when a friendly chat can turn into something more.  He had been spared the more dangerous of amorous advances, but he credited that to his martial arts instructor and friend, Woo Lee from the Lee School in Daly City, a hop and a skip away on the freeway following Highway 101 to Interstate 280.  Woo often said that his childlike, somewhat angelic face that seem to exude innocence and worldly indifference at the very same time drew out a response from other people.  And unfortunately, it was often equated with the unsavory desire to delve into the secrets of his fey eyes and into his plump, cherry lips.  Junsu said it was because he was a sensual creature akin to the likeness of a black jaguar, exotic and rare.  He inspired lesser egos to want to take possession, to own such a creature.  And just like the cat to which his younger brother (for that is what Kim Junsu and Park Yuchun was to his heart if not his blood) had likened him, he did not like to be caged, preferring his own company and therefore freedom to those pubescent thinking egoists.  He surrounded himself with people who would rather discourse with him about myriad subjects of the mundane and arcane and not ask questions regarding his past or coerce him into doing something he would rather not partake of.  And in San Francisco, in Northern California, he had found such a niche of friends. 

When he first thought of casting aside his nomadic lifestyle after two years, he saw himself in the teeming throngs of LA where there was a niche culture geared towards KPop and its surrounding idol industries.  Or perhaps in Napa among wine, vineyards, and its enthusiasts as well as world renown gastronomic offerings for he has retained his enthusiasm for cooking.

But San Francisco had taken a hold of him and had not allowed its tendrils to unfurl around his heart.  The restless city had scrawled its indelible hold upon his soul and had not seen fit to erase its presence since.

Just like the man that was currently sitting across from him.  He noted that his companion’s sun kissed complexion was much the same, golden hued and so vital as if he played among fields drenched in sunlight all day. He was a rich honeyed caramel compared to his own alabaster complexion which seemed to become more translucent like the white jade sold in Chinatown in this city where the full brightness of the sun was such a rarity.  Then again, even back then, he had always been paler, the moon to his counterpart's sun.  Together, they were like Yin and Yang.

“Hello, Jaejoongie,” the husky voice washed over him like the 100 year old Scotch that slid down his throat.  Tendrils of memories eddied around his mind.  Images of this same man from years past careened through his mind much like the fog that slithered into this city, roiling, and rolling, permeating each forgotten crevice.

“Yunho,” he breathed, his voice a wispy rivulet of sound in the break of the jazz band that had been playing.

“I’ve been waiting to run into you,” Yunho said holding the fey, dark caramel colored gaze with his onyx orbs, capturing and unwilling to let go, creating some spellbinding atmosphere between them.

Jaejoong broke eye contact and instead perused the face that was older than when he had last seen him.  There were lines on his face, near the crinkling of his eyes and around the mouth whose cupid’s bow lips still slanted upwards in an obvious smile.  The hard lines of his jaw and cheek bones were more pronounced now as he had grown out of his baby fat and had turned into the solid male specimen parading himself in front of Jaejoong.

“Have I changed so much that you need to memorize each plane on my face, Jaejoongie?”

Jaejoong laughed, the sound reminiscent of the delicate glass bells often sold in the myriad stalls of this bustling city hawking souvenirs.

“I think we can agree that I have aged as much as you have,” Jaejoong said.

“You have aged more gracefully than I have, I think,” Yunho replied.

“Well, we are nearing forty, Yunho-yah.  No one ages that gracefully,” Jae smirked.  “What brings you to this city that seems to forget it belongs to another world?”

Yunho grinned, displaying his rows of precious pearls, white against the dark pull of his ruddy lips.  The pink tip of a teasing tongue peeked between the carefully constructed rows.  He eased buttons out of their moorings and unwrapped his neck from a length of knitted cloth.  He opened his black wool coat to reveal a knitted sweater of honeyed merino wool under which a black cotton turtleneck peeked above the V neck of the luxurious cloth. 

It was the ubiquitous San Francisco uniform as varied shades and textile of the same outfit pervaded the streets of this city with no regard to sex or age. Jae wore his own version though his choice was always mostly black.  No cream or white, perhaps a smattering of gray, shot through with silver lightning through the warp and weft of the cloth.  But only sometimes, for he had grown to actually equate himself with the black and its sensuousness, much like the wild black jaguar Junsu described him as.

A waitress brought a tumbler of ice and some dark concoction and presented it to Yunho with a winsome smile.  He smiled back at her, a friendly exchange of strangers, as he placed a bill on her tray as payment for the drink and her service.  He paid scant attention to the woman. His attention focused most fully on the man across from him.

“Another one, hun?” she asked Jae, shooting her dark blue eyes at him and giving him a friendly smile. This has been their standard greeting for the last 5 years. 

“Yes, please, Lissie,” he smiled.  The lady smiled, caressed his cheek and went to fill his order.

“She knows you?” Yunho asked, a sliver of darker emotion threading its way through the spoken words.

“She has been a fixture of this place, a highly regarded queen,” Jae answered.  “And I have been a loyal servant, visiting her, for the last 5 years just so she can pour me a skein of liquid comfort in a glass as well as offer comfort with a caress of her fingers or a smile from her knowledgeable lips.”

Jae noted the furrows that grew on Yunho's face. Surely they were but shadows from the flickering of the ambient candle in front of him.

“Why settle in San Francisco, Jae?”

“I do not know.  I am unsure as to how to explain. It… called…to me.”

“Wasn’t the ideal supposed to be Paris?”

Jae covered his mouth and laughed.  “That was when I was young.  The city of love was empty when summer came around as everyone escaped the humidity of the city to the nicer regions of Nice, but this place… It is always pulsing with…energy…life.  I think I needed it.”

“Are you never coming back to Korea?”

Jae looked outside and watched the river of lights streaming  in and out of the city.  There was something dark that threaded into Yunho’s voice at the question.  Jae wondered at it, catching the sibilant whisper of something foreign and forcible within the mundane question.  He caught it in the web of his mind, turning it over, tumbling it like a rock on a river bed, polishing and wearing it down until he could almost see the shape of that thought – desperation.  But why? 

“There are traces of South Korea in that rivulet of space down there,” Jae answered cautiously. 

Yunho looked at the river of light below.  There were fixed shining spheres that didn’t move to the gentle undulating flow.  They were like glittering gems of color against the dark backdrop of the velvet night.  The fog swirling around the city made the scene surreal as if one was looking through an alchemist’s pot or the foretelling mists in a fortune teller’s ball.  Wisps of minute density swirled and eddied around the towers of the city.  Soon, the fog will push itself down and the scene below will be covered by a blanket of down.  Its fluorescent picture dimmed under cottony layers. 

“But it’s not Seoul,” Yunho exhaled pushing the words with the rushing breath he had held too long.

“Seoul does not hold my soul like this place does.  Here, I am cradled in the mists of time, my broken heart mending as it nestles among the clouds, not jostled around by uncaring, unseeing, unbending whims of human desires,” Jae whispered.  He dared not whisper that Seoul was like barbed wire and razors on his heart knowing it contained that someone he could not...

He turned his gaze back to Yunho and catching his eyes, he said clearly for the other man to hear, “I have gone back to Seoul.  I travel there frequently.  Junsu and I have starred in some drama a few months back.  Did you not hear of it?  Did no whiff of wind capture that news and carry it to you?”

“This heavy formality that you throw at me unmans me.  Have I stopped being your friend, Jae?”

“Yunho, that word evokes closeness you and I have not partaken of in some long, long years.  I am closer to one Shim Changmin than to one Jung Yunho.  For at least, Shim Changmin will occasionally deign to call and relate all manner of news to his older brother as is his wont.  But from Jung Yunho, I have not heard a quailing laugh or a whispered sigh until now.  He appears in front of my gaze like a long forgotten memory evoking years past as if they were only yesterday.  What of his presence should I make?  This long lost friend?  Of what particular desire does he have need of me?  And I?  Would I give him what he desires?  This pale, grizzled old man whom age has seen fit to grace with some wit and wisdom.  Is he willing to fulfill the request that he knows will come from the lips of one who was until recently a ghost residing in his memories?”

“So I am no longer considered your friend?”

Jae sighed.  The languid temperance of the drink he sipped has long lost its temporary warmth. This man had never been just a friend. He had been more. An enemy, a rival, a friend, a shelter, a shield, a weapon, the bane of his existence, the contrast in his life, the constant changing fleeting feeling, the keeper of his soul, the lover of his body...

He was still so much more...

“You still consider my self a friend then?”

“Even though you dance gracefully out of my reach these many years. Even though I cannot seem to find where you are from our selfish dongsaengs. I have always considered you my friend, Jae.  I thought that you had always considered me yours."

Jae laughed mirthlessly.  “Your choice of words…ah, how insane.  Answer me, then, friend.  What brings you to this city of clouds and base instinct?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“The last I heard, Jung Yunho, I was the last person on earth you wanted to see.  Your affianced at that time - your wife now, I suppose, Ara-ssi, said I am not a welcome person in your life, not even as a friend. Your parents echoed her sentiments for I was...unclean...and you were not...”

Yunho let out a string of expletives and curses. 

Jae listened to them with some interest for they were colorful and base, suited for the teeming streets of Seoul’s underbelly or Japan’s seedy quarters.  They were not suited to this jazz club high up in the sky in one of San Francisco’s more storied 5 star hotels. 

“And your language is still as colorful as it was back when I knew you,” Jae chuckled.

“She was never my wife!”  Yunho exploded.  “You should have known that much.”

“With the backing of your mother and father behind her,” Jae said, “there was little doubt left for me to grasp at.  It is rather funny since I came as a friend and not a lover, but was treated as if I was lower than dirt.  That somehow I was this dirty rag of a person which nothing can ever make clean and my presence would make you who must be wholesome dirty by association.  And the worst part, my friend?  You had invited me to that place.  Me and our precious dongsaengs.”

Yunho’s  face would have turned chalky under the brightness of day, but in the darkened confines of the club, the darkness prevailed. But Jae could see the apparent shock his drop of words had splashed on Yunho's face.

“I clung to the hope that perchance it was a mistake, but the news that surfaced was of your engagement to her the next day.  A celebration photo was spread at every major news source.  That you had not called to tell me of your engagement or even ask why we were not there, I knew then that I was not meant to stay long in that city.  Junsu and Yuchun did not deign to enter either after the words dropped from her rosy lips and echoed by your father’s.  Had they not been immediately behind me, I would have turned away, made some excuse and left, and hoped that they would have received a better welcome.  Their loyalty was all that carried me from that doorstep to my home.”

“It was all lies,” Yunho whispered, a thread of disbelief and pain lacing his words.

“I do not know that.  I heard from Jihye that you are recently single.  I supposed that meant you are divorced now.”

Yunho looked at the darkened eyes.  “I did not know that Jihye talks to you.”

Jae bowed his head.  “It seems that one Shim Changmin decided to give her my number.  She has been communicating with me since two years past.  She has also come to stay at my place a year ago for a vacation.  It was short and sweet.  Just like her.  I thought she would have shared that with you.”

Yunho bowed his head.  “I have not spoken to my sister since the news of my engagement reached her ears.  She and my parents have not spoken to each other either.  She lives quietly in Seoul as a lead accountant in a major firm.  She only saw fit to contact me a year ago. It seems that Ara and she had exchanged words that made Jihye think I did not want her. I do not know the reason why she refuses to speak to my parents.”

Jae laughed this time with some mirth, the pealing rivulets of sound as musical as the piano keys that sounded at the beginning of the arrangement now permeating the room.  
“Your life is a mess, Yunho.  Surely you should have stayed to untangle its Gordian knot instead of being here, sitting across from me rather nonchalantly, if I may say so.”

“There is nothing nonchalant about me right now, Jae,” Yunho said, a thread of dark longing cocooned in his voice.

“Again, I ask what brings you here?”

“I came to find you.”

“And here I am.  You have found me.  What now then, my friend?”

The silence that stretched between them was strained with some tension.  It thrummed like the riff of the guitar that threaded itself through the plink of the piano and the rivulets of notes spilling from the saxophone.  There was a palpable current that was always present between them, a shimmery piece of something that permeated the space between them, swirling and lifting around, encircling them in its fey magic, much like thin fog around the city they find themselves in.

“Is there no other place that we can be?  Where we can talk?  For I have found that there are many stories that I would like to share with my friend whom I have been looking for for the last 7 years since I had been discharged from military duties.  You see, he disappeared quite abruptly without any mention of where he was going.  Yuchun and Junsu were of no help for they had changed their numbers since that party invitation.  One Shim Changmin was also of no help for he swore never to reveal your phone number to me, his hyung.  My guess is that he must have heard of your story from Junsu or Yuchun.  I do not know for I was never told of the reasons. He did allow me access to his Facebook page which would show me glimpses of your life.  I have seen the pictures in Paris, in Bora-Bora, in Hawaii, in Belgium, in Norway, the Maldives, Japan, Philippines, Africa, Berlin...  I have heard your songs inspired much like Gordon Summers by the myriad countries you have visited.  All garnering awards at myriad shows you somehow manage to escape from without meeting me. The music museum that you have built in Seoul has seen me as a frequent visitor.  The many musical instruments you have accumulated from around the world is astounding.  I see Yuchun and Junsu frequently in their capacity as the museum’s mouthpieces, but I have not seen you.  And I have waited to run into you so many times.”

Jae looked at the man in front of him and said, “Since my life is laid bare to your scrutiny, why now?  I have lived here in this city for the last 5 years on and off.  I sojourn to Seoul only for work, preferring my meanderings to settling there.  And when I settle for a while, this city beckons to my soul. Its tides and fog a merry distraction from thoughts too roiled by life.”

  
Yunho laughed.  It was a self-deprecating sound of barely controlled despair.  “I have also been in and out of this city only leaving it for work, hoping against hope to find you on its streets, in its clubs, in its restaurants, and running along its beaches or cruising its alleys.  It was only a chance mention from Jihye that I came to know how to find this place.  And three months ago, I made it a point in my nightly prowling of this city’s vast offerings to come and hope to see you sitting, as I have found you tonight, partaking of your Scotch and listening to the Jazz tunes they crank out.  It was exactly three months ago that I had been forwarded a picture from one Shim Changmin of a Facebook photo you had uploaded of your favorite Jazz Club in the middle of the city.”

Jae tilted his head to the right.  He had kept this grain of knowledge from the younger men and Yunho's sister about this Jazz club until three months ago.  For it was his sanctuary, the church for his deprived soul.  It was a place that housed a favored style of music, served alcohol, though the whiff of smoke was not allowed within its hallowed halls, the view of billowing clouds and fog and swirling rivulets of light was enough to fill his soul and ease his heart.  He had stopped smoking as well 5 years back when a friend had pointed out that smoking and excessive drink ages him too quickly.  Being a somewhat vain creature, he ended his obsession and instead found that the niches of silence in the city were photographic and worthy of his attention. 

He had turned photography into an obsession often meandering the many parks and lakes and waterways that Northern California had offered to his questing soul.  But it was always this city that seemed to welcome him with some foreign angle he had not yet captured. 

A gallery in Seoul held many of his photographs.  He could not believe that people would pay an exorbitant amount of money to own a part of ‘KIM’s’ photographs.  Only a few people knew that it was his.  For KIM was touted as a woman more than a man, a story that Hyun Joong did not correct either.  It was a photograph that he had stolen from Jae’s extensive collection that had catapulted KIM into a much coveted print in Seoul. He wondered if Yunho had one of his prints on his wall.

"I know of a place that might offer succor on such a cold night, but it is far from the city lights. As it is almost 3 AM, there may be an empty booth we can slide into and talk the night away while nibbling on oil laden potatoes and shaped scion of meat stacked on slices of bread and vegetables," Jae offered.

He watched with languid ease the ceasing of Yunho's highest expectations falling from his face. The disappointment etched in Yunho's eyes was undeniable and yet, Jae could not give him the victor's laurels he expected to reap - access to Jae's home and in consequence, access to Jae. Seven long years stood between the easy friendship they had cultivated and the Gordian knot of lies and the feelings they had entangled. Because surely, there was some truth in what was reported as truth seven years back. He made no denials in public. She, too, kept silent if things had indeed ended.

Jae stood up, uncaring of the feelings of the other man. His eyes sought Lissie in the dark confines of the club. The scurrying woman appeared before him, another platter of drink balanced on her hand.

"Leaving so soon, hun?" she asked. He nodded, caressed her cheek and handed her a large bill.

"Keep the change, lovely girl," he said, smiling in the dakness. "Will the change get you in trouble? I will speak to your manager."

"No, not since you have spoken to him the last time," she smiled back.

He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss on her fingers. She laughed and sashayed away to deliver liquid comfort to her other customers. He turned to the stone faced man still sitting on the table. He offered his hand to him, much like a courtly prince would offer his hand to a lady asking for a dance.

Yunho looked at the proferred hand. His eyes travelled up the length of the fingers, tracing the pathway of hands to arm to sinewy muscles buried under threads of cotton and wool, to the delicate curve of a shoulder that connected to the rise of smoothed skin. His gaze caressed what his lips and breath used to measure with unhindered delight. He allowed his gaze to travel the rise of delicate bone and gazed at the plumped pillows that had once been his succor in a parallax world.

"Yunho, I offer you a chance. Take my hand and we will have that talk you proferred to want. In three seconds, if you do not, I will walk away and I will not..."

Yunho placed his hand on Jae's offered hand. Jae enclosed it in his warmth and tugged at it, silently ordering the younger man to stand and follow him.

~ * ~ * ~

TBC


	2. Greasy Spoon

~ * ~ * ~

Yunho was astounded at the small car that Jae directed him into.  The low slung Porsche Carrera GT in blazing fire-truck red was not a car he had associated with Jae who had a penchant for fast, masculine, expensive cars.  Yunho held the image of Jae driving a Bugatti Veyron or a Lamborghini Venono.  
   
“Your face says that you do not expect me to be driving something as mundane as this Porsche,” Jae chuckled, liking the play of confusion criss-crossing the man that sat in his tan heated leather passenger side bucket seat in the hard top convertible he had purchased for times like these.  “I have also stashed a much more mundane Mazda Miata in a secured space.  Northern California, I fear, has no need of my status symbols.  San Francisco, especially, regards an electric car more of a status symbol than the amount of money I poured into one fast car.  This Porsche Carrera was my one indulgence.  I also have a Mercedez Benz Smart Car for those days when freeway driving is not a must and I want to impress a San Francisco native.  Parking in the City is…difficult… if not non-existent at times.  The small car is as much a status symbol as a god-send in such circumstances.”

Yunho’s mind could not comprehend such a tale.  Surely Jae’s long frame would not be able to fit in such a tiny conveyance!

“The streets of France gave me my first privilege of driving that miniscule car, under the watchfulness of the Eiffel tower,” Jae reminisced.  “Living in the city of light had taught me that space is a premium.  Seoul should have taught me that, as well as living with five men in cramped quarters, but the streets were different.  It was a French lady that afforded the change in my thinking.  However, we are going to Daly City, a hop and a skip away, surely, but nonetheless, I do not relish driving my smart car unto the freeways in the dark of night.  Eighteen wheelers are not very friendly to little cars such as that.”  
   
Yunho could find nothing to say.  He was invited briefly into the older man’s home in the city - a well-appointed loft space with incredible security.  Yunho had marveled at the expanse of open space.  Jae’s bedroom was hidden behind ‘floating walls’ of glass panes where several of KIM’s photographs hung. 

Yunho might not be a connoisseur of art, but he had often watched for the photographs of KIM as Shim Changmin had several in his music studio and in his home. He watched for when they went on sale and picked up the ones that moved him most. Apparently, Kim Hyun Joong was the first to discover the artist.  Since the pictures were mostly of California and especially San Francisco, Yunho had surmised that KIM must be an American who lived in Northern California.  The play of light and angles and subject matter had enthralled Yunho in looking at the photographs constantly.  The very red Chinese inkblot embedded in the print resembling a chop with the Chinese character for gold on the photographs were the only things that announced the photographer’s identity.  Apparently Jae was a connoisseur of art.  And he favored the photographs of one KIM.  
   
The space was definitely defined for one man.  There were no traces of ‘one other’ in the vast space.  A bank of windows surrounded the home.  Jae had always like the contrast of black against the whiteness of the walls.  And every accessory that Jae had gathered for his home was indeed black.  The couch was enrobed in black leather.  The luxuriant silk curtains that was a dark waterfall from the ceiling to the bamboo hardwood floors and were pulled to the side of the windows were black.  The almost life-like panther caught in the act of prowling that stood on the black and green marble coffee table was black.  The polished marble tiles surrounding the fireplace was black.  His bed, or what Yunho can see of his one bed, was covered in black.  The wardrobe he pulled open had many black.  Black pants, black boots, black shirts, black, black, black… 

The space was very modern, polished, and very much like the Jae Yunho had once known.  The apartment in Seoul was also furnished in clean, modern lines, but that did not house as much black accessories as this one did.  Yunho could detect no clutter in the space which accentuated and punctuated the spaciousness of the place.  He held in his mind’s eye a photograph of his three dongsaengs sprawled like children on the floor in front of the black leather sofa sipping wine and eating Chinese food from the ubiquitous white with red design take-out boxes.  Jae was also in the photo holding a potsticker away from Changmin’s open mouth. Changmin had sent it to him once.  It was certainly taken in this place. A minute jealousy threaded its insidious poison into Yunho's mind. Bitterly, he shook his head. His silence then was his undoing. Seven years of yearning...of living with whispers of yesterday's remembrances...

They were in there only long enough for Jae to grab his keys from the wall safe he hid behind another floating picture frame constructed like an old window pane with four panels. A picture of his dongsaengs were in each frame.  The fourth top right panel housed something small, like a place holder for something more permanent.  Yunho was drawn to the tiny thing.  He gasped.  It was a very tiny depiction of Jae’s Y album.  The giant Y in front and “Only Love” in microscopic detail running across like soldier ants. Could it...? Is there a possibility...?

   
“You may start talking, Yunho,” Jae was saying.  “Since that is what you had hoped to do, correct?”  
   
Yunho noticed how Jae handled the car.  It was still a sports car even though it was one of the smaller kind, certainly capable of eating the miles betwixt and between as if it was nothing but air.  He shifted the gears with the smooth ease of someone who was used to the motions and details, his muscles bunching underneath the black jeans poured over his molded thighs.  He had not removed his black wool coat or the gray muffler that hung idly down the sides of the woolen lapels. Yunho could think of nothing to say as he sat bewitched with the play of muscles that twitched and bunched and played on Jaejoong as the other man navigated the fog enshrouded streets for even though they took the freeway, Jae had exited much sooner and the streets rose and dipped in an undulating wave of concrete and dark, swirling fog. Talking would have to be left alone until they reached their destination. It would give Yunho time to wrestle with his growing desire and his cursed nether regions. Not to mention something to soothe the desert that had sprung around his tongue, cleaving that appendage to the roof of his mouth and refusing to budge from its newfound nest.

~ * ~  
   
Jae slid into the booth and motioned for Yunho to slide across from him. The diner was aptly named "The Greasy Spoon" for its menu consisted of nothing the cardiovascular doctors would recommend. Most were deep fried offerings and all came with high artery clogging substances than was highly ubiquitous to this country. The decor was authentic hole in the wall dive. It looked as if it may have stood here for eons and time had decided to pass on by. It's only call to grace was that it was open 24 hours excepting holidays.

“Yo, Jae!” a tall young man with green eyes and blue hair bounced in wearing a white apron and the white cap that was a tell-tale uniform of the eatery.

“Hey, Ted!” Jae returned, a genuine smile gracing his beautiful face.  “You takin’ the midnight shift nowadays?”

Yunho could understand the casual English vernacular quite well having had to navigate the city for the last five years. Though he has never lost his accent as much as Jaejoong seems to have done, he has learned the vocabulary quite well.

“Yeah,” Ted shifted and rubbed at his neck.  “Gotta pay for CC, ya’ know!  Them books ain’t cheap man!”

“Plus he likes to spend major moolah when he dates,” groused an older gentleman that looked like an older version of Ted, wearing a pot belly under the same uniform as the lithe young man. “Whatcha’ havin’? Your usual?”

Jae nodded with a mischievous grin.  “Jalapeños and all, okay? And bring us a pot of that stuff you call coffee.”

“Hey, Mike!  Load it up!  It’s Jayjay!”

The cook, a bespectacled, grizzled man with tattoos scrawled upon his muscle bound arms, poked his head out from the kitchen’s ‘window’ and grinned at Jae. His hair was bound up in a white hair net cap which made Yunho look at him with some interest.

“Yo, pretty boy!” he called.  “The works, huh?  For your pardner, too?”

Jae laughed bringing his hand up to his face as was his old habit. 

“Much as I would like to see that, Mike, I think you better put the jalapenos on the side, ya’ know? But pile on the lettuce,” Jae ordered.  “Yunho, how would you prefer your meat served?  If you tell them medium rare, the cow might still be prodded to moo.”

“Medium well, then,” Yunho answered in accented English.

“Hey, pretty boy!  I got some pickled habaneros, ya’ wanna try?” the cook asked with a toothy grin.

“Sure!  Sub my ‘penos for them suckahs,” Jae yelled back.

Two cups of coffee were served to them, skeins of black liquid in white ceramic mugs that could easily pass for soup bowls.  Yunho bowed his head and thanked the lanky young man with blue dyed hair and the clearest light green eyes Yunho had ever seen.  
   
The steaming cups of tar (for it truly did not taste of any of the rich coffee Yunho had ever tasted) did much to cut the chill creeping in from outside.  The roiling mass of  fog was thick where they were, and the greasy spoon seemed to drift alone in some other dimension for a thick wall of clouds had encircled its parking space and there seemed to be nothing beyond that.   
   
The discordant whirr of a machine reverberated in the silence. 

“Hey, Cookie!  He likes strawb’ry, ya hear me!  I’ll take choco like always!” Jae yelled at the man who had taken their order and was now playing with what looked like an industrial sized blender. It sounded like a construction site jackhammer, unusually loud in the little place.

“I gotcha!” Cookie yelled over the din of the machine, making an American OK sign with this finger and thumb joined in a circle and the last three digits held up.

“He always uses fresh frozen strawberries in his strawberry milkshakes,” Jae informed the man who was watching the interactions of the small diner with the eyes of a hawk. 

Yunho was making no casual observations.  He was cataloguing what he saw and heard in his brain much like a computer would have done.  However, his filter was more succinct than what was in a computer for his parameters truly revolved around the man sitting like a pretty apparition in front of him - so close and yet so far away.  This Jae was quite like the city he had chosen.  The mists of time swirled and eddied around his person. Like the fog, the emotions that flitted across his face eddied and swirled. They veiled and revealed and veiled some more.  
   
“How is it fresh if it is frozen?” Yunho asked switching back to Korean.

Jae didn’t answer for he was preoccupied with the swirl of dark liquid in front of him.

“Gawd!” Jae bit out after taking an exploratory sip of the concoction in front of him.  “Yo, Ted!  This damn thing can put hair on a hairless cat!”

“Hair on your smooth chest, Jae baby!” Ted yelled back laughing, his mirthful face showing a pair of snaggle teeth. Much like Yunho used to have.

Yunho frowned upon hearing that description.  How did the young man know of Jae’s smooth chest? Scenarios played in his mind's eye like a tawdry movie of the possibilities. None made much sense, none gave him comfort, and all guaranteed bile pouring into his mouth. It was indeed bitter and Yunho swallowed with great difficulty.

Jae laughed at the frown gracing Yunho’s suddenly expressive face.  Or perhaps Jae’s perception was just on overdrive as it always was whenever it turns its concerns towards Jung Yunho. 

“Surely you do not think that I would be alone all these years, Yunho-ssi?” Jae asked, his tone tinged with a whisper of derision.  “Because I know you have not been alone.  Yuchun delights me in sending snippets of which lady graces your arm when you walk the red carpet.  Changmin snaps photos for me of the ladies that flock around your person.  Junsu refuses to do it for he feels some remorse over what he suspects I might feel upon seeing you photographed with some others languidly draped over your personage.”

“And what do you feel?” Yunho whispered daring the other to say something that would appease his burdened, aching, longing heart.

“Personally?  Nothing,” Jae intoned, his voice as flat as the plains of Australia.  There will be no easing Yunho's hurt. “It is certainly your prerogative to cheat on your wife if that is your choice.”

“I. DO. NOT. HAVE. A. WIFE,” Yunho reiterated, his voice hard and inflexible, carved in steel and encased in stone.  “And those were nothing more than fan service.”

Jae smiled at him with lips that turned up but with eyes carved from the icebergs of Alaska.  “I, too, walk the red carpet, my friend.  There have never been women draped over my illustrious arms,” he noted much like a lawyer touting out facts to support his case.

Indeed, that stark truth can be noted. Yunho had often noted that when perusing the pictures on the internet or craning his head to look for Jaejoong's shadow. It seemed so diabolically insane that the last seven years had him chasing after Jae's shadow like a fan boy hoping to catch a glimpse of his favored idol. It wasn't often that their paths should have crossed, and when they did not meet, it was a huge disappointment for Yunho. What demon had so orchestrated his life in this way?

But Jae did have many friends.  It was evidenced  in the selcas that littered his Twitter and Facebook accounts.  And a half-naked Jae in the arms of a half-naked Junsu making fish faces at each other did just as much damage to Yunho’s equilibrium and sanity as he supposed that the myriad pictures the maknae had taken of him and the bevy of women that always seemed to flock around him like geese around a warm stove.  Or the swimming-shorts-only photos of Jae with Hyun Joong in some forgotten paradise isle.  Or the close face shots that Changmin loved to take of himself with Jae for which Changmin delighted in sending to Yunho.  He knew that the maknae sent them to him to remind him of what he had lost through the lies told and the silence that followed. Though it was only a year ago that Yunho realized how the separation was in truth his own stupid fault...

He did not realize just how severe the lies told were.  He had already berated Ara and his parents for erroneously spreading the ‘news’ of his engagement, reiterating that he had no intention of ever getting married.  Had his filial obligations and sense of loyalty not weighed down on him as much, he would have forsaken his parents and the blood ties he held with them.  As for Ara, he did not intend to see her humiliated so he had kept quiet, allowing her the time to tell people that she had changed her mind.  However, this long a time, he really had not heard of anything.  In his simple supposition, he did not realize that a great number of people had assumed he was married.  Not until a year ago did he realize it.  And it was no other than Park Yuchun who had alerted him of this fact. 

_ _ _

_“Hello, Yunho, hyung,” the lead actor greeted him on one of the dramas they had found to do together.  It was a little break from the speed in which they filmed._

_“Ah, Yuchun-ah,” Yunho had smiled at his dongsaeng. There had been little opportunities to talk. And while they did speak in public, their private conversations had been nil. He was always invited to galas and charity events that Junsu and Yuchun headed, but they never seem to find time to sit and talk as they had when they were Dong Bang Shin Ki._

_“How is your wife?  Any children yet?” Yuchun had asked._

_Yunho’s face must have registered shock and perplexion._

_“Hyung?  Your wife, Ara?  We were at your doorstep for your ‘welcome back’ party, but Ara and your parents had told hyung Jae that he was not welcome.  Ara said that as your affianced, she did not want him anywhere near you since he’s a dirty…”_

_Yunho watched the trembling of Yuchun’s lips over the extreme cant that Ara must have utilized to describe his precious hyung.  He also watched Yuchun clench his jaw briefly before continuing._

_“Anyway, I wanted to congratulate you since I couldn’t years before,” Yuchun said.  “We would have been happy to congratulate you on your engagement, hyung, but we couldn’t…condone what was done to Jae hyung.  Our anger at your father and Ara had transferred over to you.  For that, I apologize.  And the years that it took for us to finally talk about it again.”_

_“Yuchun, I’m not married.  I’ve been looking for Jaejoongie all this time. But it seems that even Changmin did not want me to easily find him," Yunho had said with a quiet conviction that brooked no doubt to be cast upon his words._

_The younger man sat on a chair opposite him with his mouth shocked open, his eyes as as thoughts tumbled in discordant rhythms through his stupefied brain._

_“What…what… Can you…?”_

_“I’m not married, Yuchun.  I never was.  The engagement was not real.  My parents and Ara put that out without my permission and my consent.  I could not allow Ara to be subjected to humiliation so I waited for her to tell people that she’s not marrying me,” Yunho said.  “And I thought it was a done deal.”_

_“Hyung!” Yuchun stood up and shook him.  “Paboya!  Bakana!  Aish!  Everyone I know still thinks you’re married! They’ve taken bets as to when you’ll produce your first child!”_

_Yunho’s brow creased into a frown.  He has given them no reason to think this way.  Had he not been diligently looking for the one person in the world he wanted beside him? Even when he thought Jaejoongie didn't want him? Even when he was angry that the three dongsaengs kept him away? Even when every whisper of a project of Jae had him traipsing all over to be allowed a bit part in? Even when the only clue he ever has was Changmin's Facebook page? Even with no help at all from the people who surrounded them? Heechul, Geng, and even HyukJae would not tell him Jaejoong's address or number. He found that Jaejoong did not stay at his home when he's in Seoul. One of his noonas have taken over the place. It was as if he was a mere visitor to Seoul. So no fans could trace his address. Even when he was angry that Jae had cut him off with no explanation he had searched for what his soul wanted. Because despite all that, Jaejooongie belonged with Yunho. Yunho didn't care in what capacity. Jaejoongie was his sun. His world too cold and dark without him..._

_“Ask Changmin, hyung, because I think even he thinks you’re married,” Yuchun said.  “Jae hyung believes you’re married.  Junsu believes…”_

_“Jae thinks I’m married?” Yunho's heart hurt. His question now answered as to why Jaejoong was kept so far from him._

_“No news was ever heard of you denying the engagement, hyung.  And nothing was heard from Ara’s mouth either,” Yuchun said.  “And we haven’t seen hair nor hide of her since three years ago.  We assumed that you had asked her to quit so you guys can start having babies.”_

_There had been little time to talk to Yuchun after, for their drama’s pace was grueling.  They talked briefly but it was solely focused on the drama and since then, Yuchun was too busy with more projects.  But he did send a text telling Yunho to check Jazz clubs in San Francisco for it was Jae’s favorite relaxing music._

_Yuchun did not realize that San Francisco had many Jazz clubs.  The outlying areas as well had Jazz clubs sprouting everywhere.  There was practically one jazz club per block lining Mission Street.  Jazz clubs in San Francisco were as prolific as Chinese Restaurants.  They ranged from seedy, hole in the walls, to upscale trendy places with drinks and food costing a small fortune in change.  It would probably have been easier if the younger men had just handed over Jae’s home address which he was certain they knew or at least his phone number.  But no!  Whatever those three planned and agreed on, for he has no doubt that the three had spoken, it did not include making it easier on their hyung and former leader.  Yunho only trusted that fate was indeed kind to him and to Jae.   He had faith that he would find Jae in this vast esoteric city, just the matter of years concerned him.  And found him he did.  With help, he acknowledged._   
__ _ __

The thick concoction of frothy milk and ice cream blended into a smooth drink with chunks of sugar sweet frozen fresh berries was not something you could slurp with a straw though one was provided.  Jae chose to slurp his bowl of tar instead, waiting for the rich, thick shake to become more malleable to being cajoled through the plastic tubes.  The diner regulars had decided to start dropping in as was their wont though Yunho noted that a cup of coffee and a to-go box were the usual standard.  A few peace officers did sit down to eat, greeting the two servers and the cook more as friends than casual strangers.  They gladly poured their own coffee as the youngest one served Jae and Yunho their orders.   
   
Yunho eyed the plateful of potatoes, deep fried until they were golden crisp, topped with golden strands of gooey cheese, and his mouth watered at their overpowering garlic scent.  These were no ordinary French fries he guessed.  Another plate of a gigantic burger was served before him and his eyes rounded for he was quite unsure as how to eat the stacked burger glistening with rivulets of grease and juice. He watched Jae peel his coat and muffler from his black turtleneck clad body.  The way the knit clung to his body left little doubt in Yunho’s mind that Jae was still as muscular as the last time they had seen each other.  He swallowed, though he hoped that no one had noticed the reflexive action of his adam’s apple bobbing up and down. But he did note that despite it all, Jae was slender...too much so...

Jae carefully laid his wool coat with the muffler still clinging to its lapels on the bench next to him. 

“If you want to try and eat that, I suggest you do the same, leader-ssi.  Otherwise, your coat will be covered in the grease for which this joint is known,” Jae smiled.

Yunho quickly divested himself of the garment and did as Jae had first done.  He watched Jae slide the sleeves of his turtleneck up past his elbows.  He did the same.   
   
“The Jalapeños are not so spicy since they’ve been pickled.  You can try the habaneros that I have on mine, but those might be super spicy for you,” Jae said after taking his first blissful bite of the gigantic burger.  There were orange bits of hot pepper peeking out of his bun. 

"Mike! You musta just pickled these! They're pretty good!" Jae yelled. "Oooh, hot!"

"A week, kiddo!" the boisterous reply came back. "Too hot for anyone else but you!"

"Hey, Mike! What's the kid eating?" a young police officer yelled. He was rather handsome, from a Latin bloodline, with his dark hair and ruddy complexion.

"Ya can't handle this, puto!" Mike yelled back. "It ain't for wussies like you!"

The officer's companions laughed.

"Prove your manhood differently, Vasquez, Jay is known to have a demon tongue. Tabasco ain't nuttin' to the man," a wizened man in uniform said.

The oldest of the group, Yunho surmised, for he sported the silver slide of age among his dark hair.

"I've been eating pepper since I was in my momma's belly, Sarge! I can handle this!" Vasquez protested, his head filled with the fantasy of his mates' adulation.

"Cookie, gimme a side of jalapeños!" Jae yelled.

"Ya' almost done?!?" Ted asked incredulously as he slid a small plate of slivered green circles of peppers into their booth.

Yunho had taken a bite of his and was busy putting in the crunchy bites of jalapeños in, for although his tongue was not like Jae's, he still relished a bite of heat on his palate. Jae, on the other hand, was gobbling up the sandwich served before him. Yunho was halfway done with his when Jae popped the last bit into his mouth.

"Aaah! That was good, Mike! Didn't think I was that hungry!" Jae said. He wiped his mouth with a rough piece of paper that posed as a napkin. The heat of the pepper swelled Jae's already plump lips. The rough napkin had spread more blood into them, making them as red as sun ripened strawberries. They were tempting beyond belief! It took more will power for Yunho to sit silently and eat his food. He reached over and wiped a bit of grease at the corner of Jaejoong's lip just to be able to touch him. He watched Jaejoong's eyes darken as he put the digit into his mouth and sucked the bit away. Yunho's eye lids drooped down as Jae licked the spot Yunho's finger was at, banked fires of desire leaping briefly.

Vasquez wanted the same burger now as he watched the beautiful man munch on pickled jalapeños as a 'chaser' to the heat of the habaneros. It might have been the pure pleasure that face exhibited upon devouring the offering. The sight of Jae's pink tongue licking at the juices that coated his lips with gusto beckoned his desire. He needed to match him.

"Mike, I want one!" Vasquez went to sit on a stool next to the counter that was directly in front of Jae and Yunho's booth.

Jae smiled with genuine satisfaction as he munched on jalapeños. His milkshake languished as of yet. He munched on gooey garlic fries and fed some to Yunho.

"How we are, friend, might make that man staring at me spit on the floor with disgust. But tonight, I feel....provocative...I want to walk on the sharp edge of a knife and see if I fall. Would you save me before I'm cut in two? I feel my wounds are open and I lie bleeding. Will you walk that knife edge with me?"

Yunho had just finished his sandwich. He took the offered garlic fries from Jaejoong's fingers and sucked said fingers into his mouth.

"You have always tasted of heaven, even when you were being rebellious. I will walk your knife edge, I will catch you before you fall, I will search for you when you are lost... Whatever you need of me, I will be. Saranghe, Jaejoongie, forever, always, until the stars in the wide heavens have fallen," Yunho answered.

Vasquez was astounded. He knew nothing of what was said for the two had spoken in Korean. It was not a language he knew, but the look in the taller man's face was something he understood. It was pure adulation for the pretty man that fed him garlic fries. And a momentary envy pierced the young officer's heart.

"How old are you? And I swear, you'd pass for a woman if you had longer hair," Vasquez said.

Jae smirked, a dangerous glint appeared in his eye. He parted his beautiful lips and licked them.

"Older than you, lad, stand down," the Captain said, coming into the conversation. He had just stepped in from the fog. "The boy is a big star in Korea. As is his companion. Hello, Jae. He the one?"

Jae smiled a genuine smile. Yunho noted that even his eyes held warmth towards the new person. It sparked a darker emotion within him. The dark storm brewed within him and it manifested itself in the narrowing of his eyes and the hardening of his already chiseled jaw. Yunho's eyes traced the line of Jaejoong's body as it fitted itself into a large wall of dark blue uniform. Against the mountain of a man, Jae looked like a child. Yunho's mouth dropped open for in front of him, a red haired legend stood.

"Paul Bunyan!" he whispered loudly and in awe.

Jae and the Captain looked at him and laughed.

"Paul Brennan, this is Jung Yunho," Jae introduced. "Yunho, Paul is a good friend. He's the one that introduced me to 'The Greasy Spoon' and everyone here."

Yunho stood and was engulfed in a giant's embrace. It was gentle and warm, much like a teddy bear might embrace one, Yunho supposed. He was ordered to sit. And Paul slid into the booth next to him.

"I've met your three comrades already. I was waiting to meet you. Jae said you were married and could not come meet with us easily. Glad you found the time, boy! Jae here often watches your movies and dramas with me and my little girl," Paul said. "He's very proud of your achievements."

Yunho gazed at the man with awe. He had no mind left to pick his jaw from the floor. He supposed the man may be used to people just gazing at him for he smiled quite nicely at Yunho. Yunho could offer nothing except his own lopsided smile.

"And if Vasquez can finish that burger Jae ate, I'll allow him a date with my future son in law," he winked at Jae. Then he whispered to Yunho, "My girl is seven and the only handsome man she's seen is Jae so she wants to marry him. Although Shim Changmin is another contender."

Yunho laughed. His face must have displayed his anger for when the image of Jae getting married to a girl drifted into his mind he saw red. Paul's well timed aside had cleared that tightening clamor within his heart.

Vasquez colored, his ruddy cheeks turning a shade darker under the lights of the eatery.

"Yunho, what kind of date would Vasquez get?" the captain asked.

Yunho looked at Jae. He rested his face on his palms and remembered and for a little while, day dreamed.

"If it's here, Jae would probably pick up his date in a limousine. Go to a fancy restaurant in the city where a special seven course meal awaits picked specially for him. Depending on his date's preference, the theater or a jazz club after. And if that's not enough, they'll walk hand in hand along Pier 39 or wait for sunrise at Fort Worth or along the Great Highway, wrapped in a blanket," Yunho described in accented English.

Jae's mouth hung open. This depiction was familiar. It was an answer Jaejoong had said in an interview once, a lifetime or so ago. Yunho was letting him know that he was listened to, looked for...missed perhaps.  
"What have you done, leader-ssi? This man will expect this prize you have described with such glowing details if he handles the heat of the peppers well!" Jaejoong hissed in Korean.

"I want this kind of date with you, Jaejoongie. Here in San Francisco or in Seoul, I want this. I've dreamed of it so often. You do not stop there. I want you to make love to me on the beach in Pacifica. I want you in the back of that limousine. I want to kiss you in the middle of Union square... Would it be so bad?"

Yunho watched the pink wash that stained Jae's cheeks at his words.

"He's the one that's getting that if he succeeds, without all the other stuff you wanted to do," Jae muttered. Yunho laughed. Jae had stopped speaking formally.

"I'll pay for all of your orders IF he finishes it," Jae said. "But! No milkshakes. Water or soda only. Mike, cook him one like you made mine."

"Ya got it! But I warn you, rookie, it ain't no ordinary burger!"

"No date, pretty old man?" Vasquez smirked.

"You'd fall in love with me, boy, and I can't have that," Jae smirked.

"Ya can't have 'im, Vasquez! Ya aint no match for 'im!" another of the peace officers yelled while a few tittered at the back.

"You gotta get in line, boy! Greater men have gone before you and failed miserably!"

"When Jae forgets that one he loves, there's a line a mile long waiting for the opportunity!"

"And we're not even talking women here!"

"Are you guys gay or somethin'?" Vasquez asked clearly irritated.

"No, puto, you are!"

Jae's eyes glitterred with a little anger. "Ya got something against a man loving another man?" he drawled, a slither of warning and menace threading his voice.

Vasquez looked at the man sitting with languid ease of a deceptive snake in front of him. The obsidian orbs glittered with an obvious banked anger watching with deathly intensity to strike if Vasquez answered wrong. Silence followed Jae's question. It pervaded the whole cafe warning Vasquez that he better choose his words carefully. His captain bored holes into his skin with his piercing gaze. Other pairs of eyes shot warning signals towards his hapless self.

"Here's yer plate, boy! Enjoy!" Mike's guttural voice washed through the suddenly dangerous silence.

The other officers stood and moved to watch the spectacle around Vasquez, but with the Captain sitting next to Yunho, they included their booth in the circle. Cookie presented the plate on Jae's table. Jae sipped at his shake and smirked at the young cop. Yunho did not care for the spectacle. He watched Jae with banked hunger and utter fascination. Jae felt comfortable with the men here, Yunho realized. The Captain had taken to patting Yunho's leg in a paternalistic fashion as if easing the tension he may have felt with the proceedings.

"Whenever you're ready, puto," Jae drawled.

"I want that date, puto, when I finish this," Vasquez challenged.

"Finish it first, pendejo, then we'll talk about the date," Jae returned.

Yunho's jaw clenched at the mention of the date. Surely....

"Vasquez! Vasquez!" the men started to chant.

Vasquez took the first bite. The cafe quieted down. Only Jae and Yunho's slurping of cold refreshing milkshakes broke the silence. Vasquez took another bite. Sweat beads started to form on his forehead and on the bridge of his nose. The third bite had him reaching to drink down water.

Jae tsked.

Water only acerbates the heat and spreads it. Halfway through, Vasquez is drenched in sweat. His mouth was on fire. He bowed his head. He was done. Money changed hands. The talk went back to teasing the poor man. A glass of vanilla milkshake was placed in his hands.

The captain patted him on the back. "It's hell on fire, Vasquez. Jae is like a fire eater. Jalapeños are a snack even when fresh. Bird chilies are still okay. Habaneros cuts us poor slobs some slack, but not by much."

Captain patted Yunho's leg as he turned to look at him. "You don't be a stranger, ya hear? My girls will love seeing the five of you together. Jae, you bring him 'round for dinner, ya hear?" He stood and the rest of the men stood as well.

"Time to go, boys!" Sarge bellowed. " Thanks for the food, Mike!"

Mike waved them away. The officers filed out the door, some stopping to shake Yunho's hand and Jae's hand. Some asked for camera photos which the two willingly provided.

Vasquez was among the last to leave. He stood next to Jae. "Umm, ya' got a number?" he asked.

Jae looked up at him and saw the banked interest in Vasquez's eyes. He smirked. "Hate to tell ya' man, but he's got all of it." He pointed at Yunho.

Vasquez finally looked at Yunho. The anger and dark promise of pain that clouded the other's eyes were enough to convince Vasquez that he's not a man to tangle with. The scar that marred his otherwise perfect face stood in sharp relief. Yunho took Jae's pointing finger and enclosed it with his mouth. Jae gasped at the feel of a raspy tongue and the bite of teeth around his digit. Vasquez's gaze swung to look at the other man. A flutter of eyelashes hid the sudden flare of desire that rose in those dark chocolate orbs.

"Your finger had cheese on it," Yunho explained, releasing the finger. Vasquez swung his gaze back to the up to now silent man. Yunho's eyes were still fixed on him. There was a clear warning in them.

'Mine! Back off!'

Vasquez smiled. He gave a brief nod towards the man. Then he swung his gaze at Jae. Jae was busy looking at his finger with a frown. His eyes held perplexity within their midnight gaze.

"Hey, I guess I'll see you around?" Vasquez asked.

The other nodded clearly distracted by the bite marks on his finger. Vasquez sighed. He was obviously uninteresting to the fiery mouthed, pretty man. Cookie laughed. They both watched as Jae placed the same finger in his mouth.

Cookie steered the young cop to the door. "Vasquez, hate to tell ya, but Jae has only held one person in his heart for the last five years I've known him. It ain't you. Perhaps he's come to claim what's rightfully his." They both looked at the man facing them and Jae. They saw the banked fire of a raging desire and the radiant glow of adoration. Two complex emotions existed side by side in Jung Yunho's face. Even if he was married, the man commanded Jaejoong's attention. Vasquez shook his head. He exited like all his comrades before him. The fog embraced his form, but Jaejoong and Yunho caught nothing of this spectacle.

 

The cafe was quiet again.

"You should not have done that," Jae whispered. He was back to speaking formally. Yunho smiled.

"You pointed at me. There was cheese from the fries there. I could not resist cheese. I cannot resist you, especially since I hold all your numbers," he countered. "And he didn't act offended. He seemed very interested. Though he is young."

Jae looked at him, his tongue flicking out to lick at the pearl of milk that was left at the tip of the milkshake straw.

Yunho's eyes darkened, narrowed, as a flash of desire snaked its way through his body. A sibilant sigh escaped his lips. "I am envious of the straw for knowing of your tongue's caress," he whispered.

Jae's mouth hung open in surprise.

"Did you not want to walk the knife's edge, this night, my love?" Yunho asked.

"The audience is no longer here," Jae countered, his voice droll and dry.

"When has that stopped you? When we were younger, in front of thousands, you would lay claim to my attention? Your expressive eyes would tempt me and beg me to notice, to come hither. Your tongue would invite my kiss and more... Surely you remember those times," Yunho stated with the same wistful, sing song, guttural voice he has.

Jae suppressed a shiver of awareness. This same caressing voice was surely one of his downfalls.

"We are no longer children, Yunho. Decades had passed, friend. What would your parents think, oh, good son, if they knew where you are? Surely you do not intend to keep breaking their hearts? " Jaejong asked. 'It is enough, I guess, for mine to break.'

"And what of your parents, Jaejoongie? Had their hearts not been broken as well? When you do not stay long in your motherland? What of their hopes and dreams?"

Jae smiled and hid his smile behind his hand. He leaned closer to Yunho as if to share a secret. "Actually, I had thought about what my father wanted. He said to bring him a grandchild. And I have spoken to my noona and her husband. If they say okay, my father might get his wish. I am going to have a child."

Yunho was stunned. What did he mean?

"I was going to ask your sister, but as she is yet unmarried, I did not want this experience to mar her life," Jae had said.

"You wanted to marry my sister and have kids with her?" Yunho asked hoarsely, his eyes clouding in pain at the thought of his Jae with his sister, lavishing the same care, thoughtfulness and sensuality on her. "I will never consent!"

"I know that, idiot!" Jae exclaimed. "Which is why I discarded the idea! But perhaps? Ah, nevermind. I will have to mull it over in my mind. When the child is 20 I will be about 60. Will I be able to properly care for him? Is it too late?" Jae looked up to see Cookie placing a familiar silver grocery cooler in front of him with the hot/cold insignia emblazoned across.

"Cookie, ya think I'mma be too old to take care of a baby at 40?" Jae asked the man.  
  
Cookie laughed. Jae handed him a $50 bill. "Keep the change, 'cause I smell Buffalo chicken wings in that thing."

Mike laughed. "Gotcha small side of Jalapeños and some habaneros in there. Some lettuce, some celery, some extra sauce, and carrots. Ya gonna take pictures, right? I hear the fog clears out on the ocean today."

"Packed you a six packa Coke and four waters!" Ted yelled. "I know its double whacha usual is, but since he's witcha..."

Jae smiled at the three, affection shaving years from his face.

"And no, if he wants to have your baby, ya ain't too old at 40," Cookie answered. "Just bring the tyke by, 'kay? And on your way back, stop by. We gonna have pork ribs ready. Deep fried first, like you said, then smothered in ta blazin' bahbeque sauce Mike and you came up with. He entering it in a contest, ya know? Coming up in the summer. It's sure ta be a winner!"

Jae laughed. "Do you want to have my baby, Yunho?"

Yunho's eyes glazed over at the picture of holding Jae's son in his arms. He smiled wistfully at the picture. 'But you're a man.'

Yunho frowned. "Wait. Now what was that?"

Cookie laughed, slapping Yunho's shoulder.

Jae was reaching for another bill from his wallet. "Lemme pay for the ribs now, then, Cookie."

Cookie stopped him. "Nah! It's our gift. I suggest Cliff house or Rockaway. The fifty bucks is more than enough."

Jae laughed. He gulped down his coffee. "Hey, Mike! If we catch crabs on the beach, you'll cook it for me?"

Mike laughed. "I'll do you a crab boil, yah? It ain't time for 'em yet, but if you find them, gimme a call."

"Come, Yunho, the dawn calls. Rockaway is a hop and a skip away. Perhaps in the stillness of nature, you can say what you like," Jae said, standing. Unknown to Cookie, he left another $50 on the table.

"Wait!" Ted called out. He accompanied them to their car, producing a gargantuan blanket from the back of his pick up truck and rubber boots.

"Just washed and while I know you're always prepped, he ain't," the young man muttered shyly.

"Yunho, accept it, and thank the boy," Jae commanded.

"Thank you, I will return them when we meet again," Yunho complied, bowing to the young man.

The boy bowed back awkwardly. He waved at them and rushed back into the warmth of the cafe. Jae opened the hood of the car and indicated for Yunho to put the blanket and rubber boots in. There was little room in the space, for something else occupied the well. With some manoeuvering, they found enough space to put the food pack inside.

Jae placed his phone to his ear a second after it rang. "Huh. Why are you calling? Oh. I see." He chuckled. "I have a guest. Surely you could have warned me. There is a key in my safe. And all of you have a key to my house. My guest and I are on our way to Rockaway. With all of you, you must call my storage company. They can send the sedan over. Have them take the Miata. I have the Porsche. I will drive it to them when I am done. Then I will see you soon. Be careful driving out, it's foggy. Maybe three feet? Okay." He sighed and indicated for Yunho to get in, clicking his phone off. "I must look into paying more for parking space in my facility. Two spaces is not enough when I have guests."

Yunho's face was awash in jealousy. Who had access to Jae, Jae's house and Jae's safe? And why isn't it him?

"If you must know, our precious dongsaengs have come down. All three of them and as they know I have my loft, they are making themselves at home in it. They want to use my car... Wait. I must text my storage person."

Yunho waited as Jae texted. With another sigh, Jae pulled out of the parking and navigated the fog enshrouded streets. Yunho was disoriented for the fog still lay thick and heavy. There was very little space that can be seen around the car. It was like when he undressed Jae slowly. Little expanse of precious flesh is revealed with each inch of cloth slid open. The fog outside is much the same. He knew that if Jae did not know the streets, there were cliffs on this side somewhere, ending up down below was a dreaded possibility for death surely awaits such a fall. But even if it reeked of morbidity, as long as he was with Jae, he would die happy.

~ * ~


	3. Pacifica

~ * ~

Yunho was astounded when Jae pulled the car into a motel seconds away from the cliffs on the exit of Rockaway Beach. He paid for two rooms. He gave the key for one room to Yunho.

"The kids will be here soon. Have Changmin sleep in your room. Get some rest. Come with me to the car, let me get my gear, and you can have the key. Feed the kids the food. I'll be back soon," Jae instructed. There wasn't much time.

"No," Yunho said, stubbornly. "I've found you. I will not part from you so easily."

Jae sighed. "I do not have a lot of time, Yunho! Dammit!" Jae took a deep breath. He took a second more to breath and give himself time to clear his befuddled mind. There will be other chances he supposed. He sighed deeply. Sometimes, the best photographs are the most unexpected. He shrugged. Fate was holding him prisoner.

"Come along then," Jae invited, begrudgingly. "Bring the food and drink and I'll bring the blanket and my gear. Slip on those rubber boots though. Leave the dress shoes." He turned to the receptionist. "When Yuchun Park gets here, can you tell him we'll be at the lookout up top? I'll text them on our way." The young man nodded.

Jae handed Yunho a flashlight as they stood by the car. He also gave him a rolling cart for the food and drinks and the blanket. And as soon as he had changed shoes, they trudged up the well worn path on the side of the cliff to wherever lookout point is. The fog was still thick and even without Jae's warning to keep close to the side of the mountain, Yunho would have clung to it. Walking, the fog swirled and eddied around them, if Jae stepped just a little faster, Yunho might not see him five steps away. But Jae kept to only three steps away. And whether Jae wanted to admit it or not, he cared enough to watch out for the man that followed behind. Yunho clung to this hope.

Jae was fearful that Yunho would not see where he went. He kept the distance between them close and within reaching distance. The man that followed was alert. Jae knew it was no time to ponder Yunho's words. They will have to wait until they reach the top and the plateau that awaited them there.

A bench provided by Parks and Rec was situated possibly 7 feet away from the edge of the cliff and the breaking waves of the cold Pacific. Jae directed Yunho to that bench. The fog was as thick as swirling soup. The blackness of night made it thicker still. The crash of waves lashing themselves against the unforgiving shore echoed in the stillness. Cars passed with some slowness but their noise was far and few in between.

Jae readied the camera on a tripod.

Yunho wasn't married.

He knew it will still be sometime before daybreak. And while Pacifica was better for sunsets as the sun rose from inland, the brightness brought sharp contrast of light and shadow that in black and white, the picture taken would make for an interesting point of view.

Yunho had been searching for him.

A frisson of happiness curled around his heart. A whisper of possibility was unfurling.

He sat beside Yunho and called Yuchun.

"Holiday Inn. Yeah, yeah. If you don't like it, get your own. Intend to sleep only for a sec. Will be at the lookout. See you guys."

He slipped the phone into his pocket and settled in the bench to wait. Yunho gathered Jae into his arms.

"Need your warmth," he muttered.

"Use the blanket," came the dry, flat reply.

Yunho sighed. He really had no time for games. "I want only you. Only your warmth. Please allow me this." He sought the other's lips and pressed his lips into the warmth of Jae's kiss.

Yunho's tongue begged entrance into Jaejoong's heat. Jae tentatively licked at Yunho's tongue. Yunho invited him in instead. Jae delved into and caressed terrain he was once familiar with. His hands came up and slid into Yunho's hair and pressed his head closer for a deeper kiss.

"...lookout, he said! Junsu! Be careful!"

Jae broke the kiss none too gently. Changmin's voice carried up the cliff, breaking the familiar spell Yunho's tongue wove. He sat there and took gulping breaths of air into his starved lungs.

Yunho could see Jae's red lips glistening from his kiss. He sighed, expelling his frustration, and drew gulping breaths of air into his lungs as well.

Jae broke out of Yunho's tender hold to reposition the camera. Dawn soon, he surmised, but the fog was still too thick. Light was creeping in. Jae needed to occupy his trembling hands.

The kiss had awakened latent hunger within him. He felt as a vampire might feel having been deprived of prime blood for the last nine years. He was ravenous! And until he heard the maknae's voice, he was ready to ravish Yunho where they sat, regardless of tickets for indecent exposure.

Yunho had always been his downfall. He was a starving man! Desire for this one man was always his constant, his drug. Oh, the intervening years had occassions when his appendage met his palm as the need arose, but no other person had cajoled his interest to go that far. He had toys for times when he needed something within himself. But at that second of release, it was Yunho's name that slithered past his parched lips. All of that was like drinking processed juice. Good enough. This kiss from Yunho was like drinking mimosa. Gratifyingly satisfying, delicious, and utterly intoxicating. And Jae was ready to drink more, to delve back into that intoxication.  
He watched the path. Dawn had broken, but the fog was still too thick. He hoped to capture the three emerging from the trail as if by magic. He snapped and fiddled with the aperture and f-stop buttons. As a figure emerged, he kept snapping. The three were bickering as always or laughing as well. He hoped to capture something useful, if not, then that was that.

"Yunho, hyung!" exclaimed Junsu in his legendary squeal. Jae stood and turned trying to capture some moments of happiness of all of his beloved dongsaengs. The four exchanged greetings of smiles and hugs and laughter. They posed with silly expressions.

"Take pictures with us, hyung!" Yuchun cajoled.

Jae smiled and fiddled with the functions of the camera. "Save me a spot! 30 second lag!"

He didn't make it in time. He heard the click just as he was going to sit next to Junsu. Yuchun and Changmin rush to check the photo, a shot of Jae's muffler billowing. They laughed as Jae set it up for 45 seconds. It was enough time for Jae to settle in between Yunho and Junsu in their classic DBSK formation. Until Junsu shoved him into Yunho, making his lips connect with the leader's as the distinct click was heard and the flash went off.

Jae looked at the mischievous smiles the three younger ones were sporting and rolled his eyes. He went to set up the camera again to take 120 seconds of pictures with 4 second intervals and a 45 second delay. He whacked Junsu's arm on the first capture, capturing his open mouth for sure. And it was chaos for two minutes as the five decided to pose as silly as possible. Whacking and running around and bunny ears were definitely part of the rules.

Jae set it up for five minutes with 4 second intervals. And he brought out drinks and food, much to the delight of the group. They happily munched on the huge container of chicken wings with the lettuce, jalapeños, celery and carrots. The habaneros they left for Jae. Upon the retelling of the invite to barbeque, Changmin's mouth was watering. He knew the place well, for it is one of Jae's favorite places to bring them to. He urged them to stop by before the trek home as a group. He was even willing to pay for all five of them! That in itself seemed rather miraculous!

Jae felt the creeping of time weighing heavily on him. His eyes were too heavy and his head too burdened. He leaned on Junsu who sat in the bench with him.

"Junsu, let me rest for thirty minutes, okay? Then we can go down. You and Chun can share a room and Yunho and Changmin can share..." and a soft snore was heard in the cocoon of fog.

Jaejoong awoke to the squawking of seagulls. The fog was still a dense concoction. The circle of visibility had widened with the sun's rising, but it could not fully penetrate the thick cloud cover shrouding the land. Jae was cocooned and warm. He looked up to see Yunho smiling at him, his arms around Jae, the blanket covering them both.

"I think I understand your affinity to this place now. For it seems as if we are isolated in a cloud. Nothing exists here but you and I."

A drop of moisture dropped on Jae. It came from Yunho's hair. The younger men must have enclosed them in the king sized comforter, but they forgot to cover Yunho's head! The thick fog, burgeoning with water, had soaked his head wet!

Jae rose up and straddled him as he tore his muffler from his neck. He used it to sop up the excess moisture. He'll get sick like this!

"I'm sorry. They should have woken me up! I just needed 30 minutes! You could get sick! I..."

Yunho sought Jae's lips in a kiss.

"It's alright, Jae. I had also fallen asleep, but woke to the cries of gulls. I needed time to talk to you and convinced the kids to leave us alone. Yuchun carried your camera down and the other two got the food and the drinks. They did leave us one bottle of water to share. But please, my heart. Listen to me. I love you. There has been noone else but you. I cannot be without you for so long! Please don't keep yourself away from me, Jaejoongie. I will never take another woman on the red carpet. I will walk it alone, unless it is you that is by my side. I want to travel with you and have as many pictures with you as Yuchun, Hyun Joong, Junsu, Changmin and all your other friends. You have no idea how jealous I was... I am...of those pictures. I want to sleep with you, to wake looking at you like right now. To share a meal with you, to make people, like Vasquez, know you are not available, that you are mine. I want so badly for you to love me as you have loved me before, for I never stopped."

Jae sighed. He cupped Yunho's face and drew his head down and pressed his ear to his chest.

"Yunho. Do you hear my heart?"

Yunho pressed closer and listened to Jae's heartbeats.

"It cannot shout. But it whispers. And all of its whispers are for you. It loves only you and that is its constant whisper. There has been no other name it whispers. There had only been you."

Jae drew Yunho's face back up so he could look into the other's eyes.

"I couldn't stay in Korea, Yunho. Not when you belonged to someone else. It hurt too much. I couldn't be friendly towards you, for I knew the second I spoke with you, I would be ready to do whatever you wanted even if it destroyed me. I have too much self respect. I didn't want to break. So I learned to avoid you. The three were my accomplices as well as everyone in the agency. We were like detectives in determining what drama I could accept. If they were considering you, I would decline. Or if I was asked and you were also, I would make apologies. Once, I contracted a disease overseas. There is always conflict of schedules. Once the CEO took the blame for me. I escaped every awards event that would have us meet. I would perform my part and never stay until the end. If my award was presented last, Yuchun, Junsu or Changmin said my speech for me. There was always a legitimate excuse. Just as long as I couldn't meet you."

Yunho chuckled and drew the other closer. "I remember an answer you had for an interview. You said that you would love to work with me but it seemed that fate had other ideas. Perhaps you were not deemed worthy and ready so you will keep working hard to keep improving so that you will be worthy of working with someone as capable as I am. That made me sad, Jae. You'll work with me now, yes? Just to make sure, I'm going to beg your agency to take me on."

Yunho buried his face in Jae's fragrant neck. Ara had a lot to answer for. He did not discount his own failings. For his silence, it cost him 7 years of not being with Jae.

"I love you, Jaejoongie. May I stay in your life?"

Jae smiled and captured Yunho's lips with his own. It was all the answer he needed for Jae imbued his kiss with all the love whispering in his heart and the longing of his soul.

~ * ~

"Hyung! Remember, your walls are like, nonexistent. And we can hear everything! " Changmin decided to remind as they settled in Jae's loft. The sofas all turn into beds. And Jae had two. Jae rolled his eyes.

Replete from the surfeit of pork ribs from 'The Greasy Spoon' and its other offerings, they convened at Jae's loft for more sleep and relaxation. And some needed hot showers. Jae opened his closet for Yunho. The other three also had clothes in the premises. Changmin's pants fit him. There were new underwear that Jae sheepishly handed to him.

"I need not wear any," Yunho whispered.

"Jae hyung, put clothes on this time!" Junsu teased. "He likes sleeping naked."

Yuchun smiled at his hyungs. "You guys can do anything you want. It'll be like the old days in the dorm," he said making Jae blush.

Jae was indeed naked as Yunho slid in between the black Egyptian cotton sheets and under the heavy down blanket. Yunho chose the side that was somewhat exposed to the living room. He could at least shield Jae from the inquisitive eyes of the other three by turning his back and facing Jae. Jae divested him of his shirt and noiselessly trailed kisses on his skin. Subtle shifting and he was rid of pants as well. The darkness had settled early due to the thick fog. But the three were not asleep. They were intently listening for tell tale noises from them.

Yunho wished he had coerced Jae to sleep somewhere else. He whispered those thoughts to him.

"Like where?" Jae whispered.

"My place?" Yunho answered.

"Here?"

"Yes. You want to see it?"

"We want to see it, too, hyung!" Changmin piped up.

"Would you guys please go to sleep?" Yunho yelled.

"If you told us a story?" Junsu asked. "Let go, Yuchun!"

"Don't go in there, Su!"

"Why?" whined the 37 year old man for he was still used to dog piles and shared beds with his band mates.

"Seriously?" Changmin asked incredulous that this hyung was still so...unknowing.

"Why don't you tell us a bedtime story?" Jae asked. "And stay there!"

"Okay!" Junsu was happy to oblige.

"...then....wait. Are they asleep?" Junsu asked.

"Yep! They fell asleep when you were talking about Prince Changmin the loud mouth," Yuchun said.

"They sighed when you were talking about Prince Pouty Yuchun. Together," Changmin smirked. Yuchun laughed.   
The three tip toed towards the bed. The peaceful smiles of the two were enough to make them tiptoe back out.

"Our hyungs are so cute together!" Yuchun squealed in a whisper.

Changmin smiled lopsidedly, unequivocally happy. It has been too long.

~ * ~

Yunho opened his browser and checked the pictures of Kim Jaejoong. His smile was quite blinding as he browsed through many of their selcas together. There was the trip to Hawaii with Jihye and their two sets of parents. There was the snow skiing in the French Alps with Hyun Joong and Seunghyun. There was the London vacation with Yuchun, Junsu, and Changmin. His favorite was the one he took of Jae and him in bed. Though it's only their faces seen, they were obviously not dressed.

He looked at the picture frame with the three dongsaengs. The last pane now housed a photo Yuchun had taken of that long ago morning in Pacifica of Jae cradled in Yunho's arms and Yunho pressing a loving kiss on Jae's head while both were wrapped in a king sized borrowed comforter. The picture frame's twin in San Francisco was the same.

A news article caught his eye. 'Mysterious photographer KIM a closet Dong Bang Shin Ki fan with a Yunho bias.'

"KIM better have a Yunho bias," Yunho muttered to himself. The article showed a picture in the gallery called 'Whisper of Love'. It was Yunho looking out at the Golden Gate bridge while fog that was light and airy swirled in the air. His smile was quite possessive because he heard the click of the camera beside him. The rest of the pictures were of all of them playing around.

'Go Ara confesses. No marriage to U-Know Yunho.'

Yunho was still quite irritated at the woman for not clearing up the mistake. Just as irritated as he was at his own self for allowing the silence to go so long!

'Finally! Kim Jaejoong worthy of project with Jung Yunho! Film garners awards and Cannes!'

Yunho laughed. Kim Jaejoong was being awarded best actor in Cannes and they think he's the one lacking? The movie with Jae was thrilling! There was a drama in the works and even just a mention has made the drama much sought after. Bidding wars have started and it's not even begun filming yet!

"Best friends and possible lovers? YunJae adopted child from Jaejoong's sister. Turning one tomorrow!"

Yunho smiled at this news. Kim-Jung Moonbin was in truth Jihye's and Jaejoong's. Jihye donated her eggs for Jaejoong and Nuna Jinhee provided the receptacle. But he's all theirs now. He's the reason his parents and Jae's parents were finally getting along.

"Yunho! The kids will be here soon! Aren't you ready? We need to get to the press conference!" Jae was saying as he fixed their one year old baby boy's tux.

The bell rang and Changmin rushed in and gushed over their baby taking him away from Jae. "We're going to be late, Daddy, Appa! So Uncle Changmin is bringing me to the limo now!" Changmin was saying in a sing song voice. "We can't have the star of the show be late for his very first press conference, can we?"

At the press conference of Five Gods and a Baby, three of the five gods were fighting and arguing over the baby.

"This drama will probably be a reflection of our own lives," Yunho admitted. "As you can see, filming hasn't started yet and they're already following the script. Although it will be set in a past era."

"Jae, he's getting cranky," Junsu said, passing the baby into Jae's arms. Jae smiled a beautiful smile for his baby. And snuggled him close while he opened a milk bottle and handed it to the baby. The child grabbed Yunho's hand and rubbed it on his tummy.

The baby looked at his uncles and pops the bottle off. "Bye bye."

"Which one does he like this week again?" Yuchun asked.

"Still in love," Changmin answered

"That was last week," Junsu said.

"Wasurenaide," Yunho said. "We've been playing that one all week."

The five men sang Wasurenaide as a serenade to the baby. And the tyke fell to sleep with a smile on his face that looked half like Jaejoongie and half like Yunho. Yunho smiled at Jae when Jae looked at him. The three younger men behind them sighed collectively.

"A million dollar baby, that's what he's going to be! Can't believe that at one, he's earning as much as we are!" Changmin complained.

"But he's perfect for the role!" Junsu said.

"No other baby makes all five of us as insane as this one!" Yuchun agreed.

"Unless Nuna gives me another one," Jae said with a smile.

"You're kidding!"

Junsu laughed his signature laugh. "Another YunJae baby? Oooh! Make it a girl this time, hyung!"

Yuchun laughed, "Sequel: Five gods, a god in training, and a baby! Coming soon!"

The press laughed, making a lot of them note the title. Many were hoping that someone will write a sequel to the drama that hasn't even been filmed yet.

Yunho looked at his family. He's lucky to have found them again. He intended to keep them very close now. Especially the one that held his heart. He learned his lesson in being too chivalrous and honorable that he forgot to talk to the one he loves most. But all the heartache he went through emphasized what Jaejoongie meant to him. No one was as important as Jaejoongie. In his heart, only Jaejoongie's name was whispered. Yunho knew that in Jaejoong's heart, only Yunho's name was whispered.

He hoped that they will always listen to that whisper of love that sings in their hearts. The music was always so beautiful when they whisper it together.

FINI


End file.
